Where's the car?

WIREPAS PARTNER CASE

INPIXON FOR INVENTORY IN AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY

Logistics and production are rapidly growing more complex. Our partner, INPIXON, helps companies track, analyze and continuously optimize processes on the shop floor and at global level with real-time location and sensor data solutions over IIoT.

When the design department of a car manufacturer needs to locate cars or component prototypes in a hurry, there’s no time to search its warehouses. Stuck with an end-of-life barcode-based inventory system, this was the problem facing one world-leading German automotive brand. As the proposed in-house solution proved not fit-for-purpose, the search was started for a more cost effective option.

CHALLENGE

High cost alternatives and blacklisted technology

By the time you need to pull a prototype from storage, there’s usually a team of designers or business partners eagerly waiting. Speed is important, and the company’s logistics team needed a solution to locate any single model out of thousands stored in a couple of warehouses or design floors covering 1.8 hectares on two sites. In a hurry.

They needed a fully automated inventory solution with localization functionality. To locate specific models and associate each one with tags, documentation, storage status and other data. Last but not least, the technology had to comply with the manufacturer’s very strict rules for frequency deployment and radio interference where introducing new technology on the 2,4 GHz spectrum is considered a big challenge.

SOLUTION

Winning support from the frequency manager

Or rather, it was a big worry until the frequency manager of the company met with our CTO Ville for a briefing on Wirepas technology. The following tests in simulated environments resulted in the whitelisting of our 2.4 GHz technology with the manufacturer. Wirepas was passed with flying colors. And Ville’s Mom was once again very proud of him proving that the best IoT can stand even the highest industry standards.

After that, the solution itself was simple enough. Each stored prototype now carries an ELA Innovation RTLS tag autonomously connecting with battery operated anchor tags through to a gateway. The anchors form an efficient, robust mesh network where each anchor acts as a relay to the next – with battery life of more than five years. All on available frequencies, without influencing existing WiFi data traffic. Data is delivered via tags and gateways to the INPIXON positioning engine, which calculates location and interfaces via the INPIXON platform to the automaker’s own secure cloud environment.

RESULTS

Quick deployment and easy search at super low cost

A team of only three (3) people installed the battery-powered infrastructure for this tracking system in two and a half days over 18,000 square meters at a cost ten times lower than the in-house quote. The system is entirely scalable and meets the strict WiFi restrictions of this automaker’s frequency-management department.

Now thousands of automotive prototypes can be accessed, tracked and organized using a web-based dashboard tool. Users access the IoT system with Single Sign-on (SSO) to search for items. Information like metadata, notices and markings can be added, as well as file attachments for each piece of inventory. Floor plan maps show the location of items to within a one-to-three meter radius.

The team of 15 people at the logistics department now happily offers any requested parts in time, even ad hoc requests. Also, more than 700 users can make individually searches and see where their designs are stored.